


Before we go out, what's your address

by winterysomnium



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-23
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-14 21:17:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/519597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterysomnium/pseuds/winterysomnium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Is he the son? The scandal and the prison? The illness and the you’re better off without it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before we go out, what's your address

**Author's Note:**

> About the setting: It kind of happens after http://winterysomnium.tumblr.com/post/25924409864/mostly-for-fanfiction-purposes-because-i-want-to.  
> Title is a lyric from “National Anthem” by Lana del Rey.

The shower tiles are cold. Icy. They shouldn’t be; Bruce finished showering just minutes ago. They should be warm and damp and have foam stains stuck between them. They’re dry and cold instead.

It makes Tim feel like he’s in another dimension, somewhere where Bruce’s three steps ahead and Tim can’t reach him, can’t touch him once he’s caught up. Like he’s living in a faded reality, a popped bubble sticking to someone’s mouth, a deflated world clinging to another; adjusting and copying every crook and cavity, dreaming about texture unity; a mimicry.

Is he the only one left, the only one surviving, swallowing all the trash and dirt they leave, catching all the dimes and rocks and dreams thrown into wells?

He doesn’t turn on the water. Bruce comes back, a soft towel crowning his hair, and he should look like a clown but is the king instead, always.

(The naked one’s the clown.)

He feels Bruce’s eyes on his neck, the slope of his spine – it’s proof; he’s not broken, not spineless, that would be you – the dip of his dimples in line with his hips, round and – can he tell Tim is starving? He is. 

(He remembers thumbs and soft circles, pressing, like the hollow spots weren’t on his skin before, making place for them, pushing and branding, more than bruises or scars or burns could.)

Bruce’s look ends at his feet; a raw spot on the back of his knees, a purple swell on his calf. The look pools and pools on the tiles, under his feet; like Tim’s the symbols and Bruce the seer, his response the prophecy.

Bruce reaches for his shoulder and Tim sidesteps the hand, ducking deeper into – under – the shower, turns on the water, lukewarm and almost sweet.

“Is something wrong?” Bruce asks. A toothbrush is lying limply in his hands and Tim wants to pretend it’s his, but – it’s not. It’s the king’s, like everything else.

“Tim?” There’s a pull in his voice that wants to force Tim to answer; to spill his guts and forgive; maybe to yell and apologize but, no. 

Something wrong, Bruce? The only damn thing you did after you returned is that you fucked me in a hotel room, after I’ve found you and after I’ve never stopped believing and after I’ve never let you go, and you ask me if something’s wrong? “Everything’s wrong.” 

Did that slip out?

A sharp breathe in. Tim guesses it did.

There’s still come on the inside of his thighs. Dry – like his throat, like the sun, his humor. Dry and Bruce’s. (Never his.)

Milky roads and milky ways and he wishes he was the universe, unreachable and burning with stars, dying and growing and distant.

Tim presses his palms to the tiles, smooth and grounding, watches his fingers through the blurring current of water falling over his forehead, dripping down his chin. 

In a hotel room like a prostitute or a spouse or a fling.

He’s not any of those things. 

Is he the son? The scandal and the prison? The illness and the you’re better off without it?

(He slept with someone he loves, why does he feel like nothing got solved? He had thought – he’d thought – that if they ever get here, get to share this; it’ll all become – clear. The puzzle will be completed. Solved. Like the puzzle he shelved years ago was finally getting done, just a few blank spots and then the picture, his life will be deciphered. 

It only got worse.

It only seems now more pieces have been thrown into his lap. Pieces that are terribly similar but don’t fit, aren’t from his puzzle and he has to try them out to find the bad ones, piece by piece and it’s so – exhausting. 

He’s not sure he won’t make a mistake. What’ll happen if he completes it with wrong pieces pushed together? And it will be uncomfortable, too tight or too loose and he won’t know why or where is the hurting coming from and he’ll have to break it again, start from scratch, puzzle it back together – the outline first; the unique, easily distinguishable parts next; the large blanks of space and uni-color as last. But he has to sort them out at first. 

And – he can’t do that anymore. Not again. Not for what feels like the second time but it’s actually the fifth and – no.)

Bruce is silent, but his face – it’s loud. Every line and curl; every sway of eyes speaks and argues and thinks it understands.

The toothbrush isn’t in his hands anymore – he lowered it onto the sink, left it dangling limply on the edge, wavering in its balance.

His damp, terrycloth crown is thrown on the ground, and he’s stepping into the shower, right behind Tim (so close Tim feels like they’re two slides waiting for projection. Spot ten differences). The water stops trickling down his back, seems to outline his sides now, jumping in drops from the cliff of his hip.

It’s like Bruce’s a canvas, lean and unyielding and larger than Tim, painting Tim’s wet mess of hair and the growth of his muscles, overheating Tim’s temperature, draining humidity so he doesn’t smudge, doesn’t slip through the drain.

“You were a virgin,” and it doesn’t need saying and Bruce is just picking out of straws; which one has the answer Tim needs? Tim knows this because that’s not what’s wrong – “I’m sorry, I should have realized. I’m sorry, Tim.” 

He was a virgin. He has lost something that was – never there, until it suddenly feels stolen.

(Nothing is Tim’s anymore – and that’s what’s wrong.) 

And Tim – Tim should want to cry. Because of this regret in Bruce’s voice, this humble apology that’s overdue and not for the right thing – Tim needs to cry (but he refuses to).

Wants to yell, it’s not that, it’s not.

Tim’s mad. Terribly, bone-breakingly mad.

The words fly straight from his chest; raw, his heartbeat still attached to them, pushing them through: “You knew I was a virgin when you got lost. Did you think that I would just, just have sex with somebody, just like that? Do you even know me?” Tim’s voice hitches and the water turns cold.

Bruce stands like a statue, like he’s a part of this hotel room – static and build-in and not supposed to have an opinion about anything.

Tim shuts the water off and he’s a clown, a clown without cover and he leaves the shower, the bathroom, the hall.

The unmade bed is like a slap and why is he so angry? So terribly angry and frustrated and hurt, hurt over someone like Bruce, over someone who doesn’t even answer his phone, doesn’t ask and doesn’t seek, doesn’t try to be there and thinks Tim would jump into bed with someone the moment he’s gone and – 

Tim dresses and walks out the door, doesn’t look back at Bruce still standing in the bathroom, unsure what to do. Tim hesitates when he hears Bruce move; slams the door as the scrub of a brush reveals that the man started brushing his teeth.

All you did was fuck me.

—-

It’s another hotel room with unnatural air and generic pictures and pale bathroom tiles and – Tim’s not playing this game.

“I hope you didn’t eat my chocolates,” pours form his mouth and he wishes it would sound more bitter. Bitter like his mouth and chest and eyes feel. 

The anger stirs in him again, burns through the weight in his feet. He unzips his jacket and puts his helmet on the table, sees a reflection of Bruce’s silhouette in red. 

The same red as Tim’s and the rest of the room’s and it’s soothing. To his helmet, they’re just another sheet to color.

(The trouble is –Tim’s cheating. He’s already partly pre-colored, down from his unstitched-restitched-unstitched hip to his shoes, dyeing and dyeing until he’s too dizzy to tell what’s wrong. (Still everything.))

“You weren’t home for two months,” the silhouette says, dances across the bent line of the helmet’s vision. 

I wasn’t home so you ate my chocolates? sits on his tongue, tweeting like a bird, right under Well you weren’t even in this century, do I get to eat your birthday cake now?

He swallows it – not completely, just – deeper, crouching behind his Adam’s apple, and look, even his apple isn’t his; what’s Eve’s? 

“I was in my apartment a week ago,” and it’s ridiculous how much he doesn’t want Bruce to see him undress. But there was something off, something tilted about him, he knew. He knew he was supposed to take off his dress shirt, there was a purpose twitching under his fingertips. His fingers stumble on the buttons, tiny and slippery; is he that tired? His heart races, wants to break through his ribcage with its fists, his heart that’s beating for someone else, for a lot of people, but why, why so fast and forceful? 

(Is it because of Bruce? Because of the song of his breathing and the melody of his pulse? Well Tim’s not going to play second fiddle anymore.) 

“That’s home to you now?” Bruce is stepping closer, so quick that for several seconds, he’s just a sharp blur. The ocean hums in Tim’s ears now; it’s so noisy it almost filters out Bruce’s question. 

But Tim still delivers the answer; it’s something to focus on. “Yes.”

He stares at the red of the helmet, tracks Bruce’s movement, his body made out of black spots, vanishing and appearing on his skin and clothes, over-painting his sea eyes, his lipstick lips and everything seems to be highlighted in red now, the walls and the sea and his bed – and his helmet is cheating. She’s cheating because now the world’s almost black but she’s still red, red and red and she’s keeping it for herself and he doesn’t have enough dye for this, he doesn’t –

and it’s wonderful, how Bruce always knows when to catch him. 

—-

Same hotel room, a new blood stain on the carpet. (Still no chocolates.)

It almost looks like a chalk outline, the bloody print. Who’s the victim?

(Who benefits?)

There’s a body in the sheets of his bed and he thinks it’s his own but who knows? His arms feel floaty, like clouds heavy with – drizzle, and his fingers, they are the raindrops, the rain and the gravity that pulls them, his torso the earth and his bellybutton the evaporating sea and look he’s an ecosystem, all on his own! 

There’s a crop formation low on his stomach, a simple, crisscross earthquake of strings, cutting off the mouths of volcanoes and keeping his lava pooled under his skin and okay, he can, can explode later – later on, but he knows this earthquaky pattern, this shaky picture of memory that swoons in his chest; BruceBruceBruce was here, was a part of his ecosystem, like a shooting star, like the moon, marking and leaving, damaging without traces and disappearing somewhere he can’t follow.

And it must be that part of the day, year, century – because Bruce sits on the edge of the bed, in a black suit and he’s the cosmos personified – and how’s that fair, Tim wanted to be the universe – smoothing down Tim’s sweaty hair, tucking it behind his ear (it tickles, and there’s a snicker bursting in his throat but he doesn’t let it through, lets it dissipate there).

“You’re awake,” Bruce’s mouth doesn’t smile but his eyes do, and that’s okay, somehow. Tim doesn’t need his mouth, anyway.

“I’m an ecosystem,” Tim responds; proudly and fine, he might need Bruce’s mouth a little bit, because he wants to kiss it, kiss it stupid until it loves him too.

But he managed to get it to smile, so that’s a victory. He might even throw a stormy party and invite all the forests and birds and bugs and beasts of prey.

“You should sleep some more.” 

And Bruce’s words are probably magic spells because now that he heard about sleep, he can recognize it again. And he thinks he wants it, closes his eyes – out of instinct, kind of – mumbles, feeling thirteen and a boy again, “Do ecosystems need lots of sleep?” before he’s asleep, the drugs in his cells taking care of any dreams he could have had.

—-

Third time’s the charm and this hotel room is losing it.

At least he isn’t high anymore. 

The outside is at night, and it’s probably not so young anymore, aged and in crisis right now; it’s past three am. The sun’s going to crash night’s night out and send it to bed, while the moon will hide in the bathroom and peak, lurking behind sun’s back the whole day.

(Okay, he isn’thigh anymore, right?)

He sits up and the stain – it’s brown and dried now, peeling off. He will have to pay an extra fee for that, won’t he? Then again, cleaning a stain is better than to dispose of a dead body with lots of varied stains around it; the cleaning lady won’t even need therapy.

And he should probably thank Bruce, because paying a few more bucks is better than being dead (at least it’s better now, because who would be waiting on the other side, who when everyone is back here, alive?)

Thank Bruce and get mad at him again, because that seems to be the only paradigm present in his mind concerning the man that’s currently pretending to be asleep, faking it horribly.

Tim sits up higher and spots a bottle of water, devours it in careful gulps.

The lines of Bruce’s face are smooth but tense, and – that probably gives him away. He’s too organized, too controlled to be asleep.

“You ate my chocolates again.”

“You passed out on me.”

“Yeah, in the middle of a conversation nonetheless. I guess that’s ruder? But still… thank you. It’s…surprisingly better to pass out on you than onto the floor. The floor generally doesn’t care to stop the bleeding and can’t stitch, so, yeah. Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me for helping you. Especially when I can tell you’re still mad with me.”

“Can you?” Tim asks, watches his lap. It’s covered in sheets and fabric and skin but – Bruce saw it. Saw him and touched him there and made him come, made him feel worth something, be it a somewhat incestuous orgasm, be it a body to share it with, be it just a moment of indulgence. 

(His mind is so low on endorphins he kind of wishes he was high again. Sadness is incredibly funny when he’s on pills.)

“Tim.” Bruce’s voice is stern. Was that a scold?

Fine. Tim can give himself the lecture.

“You’re mad too. You think I’m ungrateful. For not coming home. For not calling it home. Or is that not it? Should I have said: Home is where you are? But – just so you know – recently, a hotel room can feel more like home than the Manor.”

It’s a low blow. He expects a slap for it. The words were meant for one; disrespectful and blunt like that.

Because – what about Alfred and Dick? But – both of them had thought he was crazy (remember, he was the thief and the ally and the follower, the glitch in their family). Can anyone blame him for being insecure, sometimes?

(And he forgives, he does, but forgetting is harder. Bruce should be aware of that – more than anyone.)

And Tim wonders – was it easy to forget him? Or were those drawn and written marks and clues for him, unconsciously; just Bruce’s subconscious leading his fingers, his need to not be silent? To be found? By Tim?

Bruce’s hand taking his jerks him back; and it’s almost like that expected slap (the heat’s the same).

“Tim. What is this really about? What did I do wrong? What didn’t I do?”

All you did was fuck me.

(And I wanted you to.)

Tim’s eyes slide sideways, stop watching the cotton of his bed and watch the cotton of Bruce’s hand instead. It’s huge, scarred, warm with sleepy blood. Rough and experienced – bent and crooked and broken so many times, things like Tim’s love feel completely irrelevant.

(It’s hard to be mad with someone you admire and want to impress and want to love the right way, the way sons should love their Dads but that’s not them, is it? That never was them and – Bruce knew. Bruce acknowledged that, and Tim thought – thought he would admit it, this time.)

Say it. Sift it through his throat and pack it in his mouth and deliver it with his teeth. Make it something Tim can record and keep and hide. Make it heard.

“You knew I was in love with you the moment it happened. I suspect Cass told you, too. My body language was all over the place; I couldn’t control something like that at that time, not yet. I wasn’t good with – stopping those reactions, forgetting dreams, prevent getting them. You knew and you did nothing. You let me – linger, when I touched you. You let me test you and indulged me and then – then didn’t contact me for months, pushing until I felt like one of the trophies, lying around the cave and collecting dust that Alfred would wipe away once a week. And then – then you kiss me. Kiss me and say absolutely nothing about it and die the next week. Why? Why would you kiss me, if it was only to tell me – to show me– you didn’t want me? Tell me that.”

Bruce’s hand doesn’t move – doesn’t even twitch – where it’s touching Tim’s skin, where it’s soft and heavy and giving and taking nothing, and that’s a pattern, isn’t it?

The street five stories under their – Tim’s goddamnit, Tim’s – balcony whirrs with quick retreats and drunken singing, deep and rich and free, the wind dragging lost leaves on the floor and sticking them wetly on the concrete, the chests of closed windows. Bruce’s quiet remains and Tim’s pulse soars, bumping wildly against his veins.

Is Bruce just thinking or is he exercising the tiring routine of ask and not answer; which is it?

Tim drags his gaze from their hands to Bruce’s face, seeking out his eyes but gets his eyelids and eyelashes instead; Bruce’s eyes are closed.

Tim has enough. Of this pull that doesn’t get a push in return, of this skin of a boy saving what he can, sacrificing what he needs and this is it. 

This scenario is the line, the eclipse that steals the sun, eats it away.

He attempts to get up, throwing away the covers, but Bruce’s hand doesn’t release his, clamps and Tim falls back with a hard jerk, embarrassed and angry and fucking unhappy, because what exactly does Bruce want, what is his goal? What is his gain?

(Who benefits?)

Tim’s weight turns dead, forfeiting; and Tim closes his eyes.

There’s nothing to get anymore, nothing to understand. “Let me go.”

Bruce doesn’t. Lets his mouth open and answer, instead: “You won’t let me think it through. You don’t give me time to word everything so that you’ll understand, Tim.”

Tim feels a tiny sizzle, somewhere in his body, and fine, okay, he can wait for his heartbreak to be worded perfectly and cut out just for him; is that the least Bruce can do? It probably is.

The silence allows Tim to pretend they’re trying to fall asleep. Freshly showered after hours of good patrol, falling asleep to wake up in the morning and skip breakfast, go to work and meet up for lunch, share jokes no one else gets. It lulls him enough he almost does doze off, right on the edge (he half dreams about putting on Bruce’s suit, first the jacket, the tie and then the shirt doesn’t fit, the pants fall off, the belt a sloppy circle perched on the swell of his bottom, and it doesn’t fit either, why did he put on shoes first, where do the socks go?) just when Bruce’s voice cuts through the haze (he’s back in his underwear).

And Bruce’s voice seems to always cut through everything; carving out things Tim will do, he will –

“I didn’t kiss you to express my not-wanting you. On the contrary – it was to show my interest, my reciprocation. I thought saying anything, doing anything more wasn’t necessary. Also, you were right – I did know, and Cassandra did tell me – more out of concern than anything else – but, you were so young Tim. Too young and I thought it would pass, that you would settle on someone else, someone more – adequate. And I did all those things you said – letting you linger and pushing you away and that wasn’t fair. But you didn’t make it easy either – you won’t tell me anything until I force it out of you and it ends in pointless misunderstandings that only leave us confused; engaged in a fight neither of us can win.” Is what Bruce says.

And Tim…doesn’t quite believe this (but the kiss was so chaste, but what if it was just the last linger before the final push; you were the red string giving sense to all the funerals, I didn’t make sense without you – ) no, not yet, but – “You’re preaching to me about communication?” There’s a surge in his voice, in his body, and he wonders if he can blurt out “Did you just ask me out?” in lieu of a proper, thoughtful answer (in lieu of all the buts and ifs and yous).

Bruce’s shoulders shift, he says: “I think we both need to work on it.” and Tim ends up blurting it out anyway (“Did you just ask me out?”).

“I believe it could be taken that way,” is Bruce’s smooth answer, better then a kiss or a fuck or a sign in the sky.

Bruce takes hold of his hips and drags Tim up, slow and careful, aiming not to strain his stitches. Tim’s back never leaves the sheets, only now it sits higher and Bruce is pressed to his uninjured side, head propped on his naked elbow, the palm of his other hand covering Tim’s bellybutton, like it’s a cavity, like it would let out all of Tim’s air if Bruce’s palm would lift.

Tim wants to say “It’s proof I’ve been born.” Born, but is he human? Born, but is it? 

What he says is, is something he didn’t want to reveal either, but Bruce’s here and he’s holding in his air that’s not escaping and he has seen Tim, seen him like this in another hotel room’s bed and it’s like they’ve returned to that moment, before Bruce’s fingers touched the skin of his lap, before Tim’s lips mouthed pleasure and hitches of lungs, before. 

So Tim says: “I’m glad it was you.” Rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms, adds: “I mean, when we.” And look, it’s Bruce’s lips doing the cutting now (doesn’t even need the words, go figure). They kiss the corner of Tim’s mouth and it’s like there’s a new synapse born, stretched from his belly to his lip and there’s a memory attached to it, hanging in snapshots from its line, touch after slide after press of Bruce’s body and Tim has the urge to turn around, wait for other lines to catch on.

“I’m glad. I was – unsure. If I over looked some sign saying to stop and I didn’t. That you were…unhappy with it.”

(Tim wasn’t. He was unhappy with everything else, but not with that.)

“I’ll try to stop by the Manor more often,” Tim says, changes the context. 

And he will try – even when it stings – going there now, his spot not being his and it’s like trying to sit on a stool that’s too small and he has to change seats and – it’s not worse and it’s not better, it’s different and sometimes he forgets and it’s embarrassing, trying to squeeze somewhere you don’t fit. 

“You know you can come over to my apartment anytime, right? Bruce. Even if I’m not there.”

(Even if Tim’s mad or distant or scared.)

It’s almost like a safehouse. A safehouse with a spare Robin in its inventory, could there be any safer place?

The murmur of his voice seeps into Bruce, and he wonders what’s so special about this boy – young man, now. Where lies the core of his attraction, what’s so enticing about someone that it makes you want to understand every scrap of their mind, map out the wiring of their body and overlap it with yours, make them complete you in a way no one else can. 

“Will it still feel like home if I come there uninvited?” Bruce’s response is quiet and that’s, that’s a tight voiced question. It’s a question Tim doesn’t feel like answering. Which answer is the lie and which is the truth here?

(He goes for the obvious, licks his lips – licks them every time he’s out of character and unsure with what he’s saying, like he’s dampening them to make the words flow smoother, make them impossible to catch and dry on his lips, half said and transparent.)

And the obvious is: “I’ve just invited you.” 

Bruce’s stirring frustration grinds his jaw, tense against Tim’s temple. Then it lifts.

“Yes, but will you still feel secure? Don’t you want more space to yourself?”

Tim almost laughs. He had the whole world to himself. He had the world and the world under it, every room and every star, all to himself. He’s sick of space. 

“Don’t you think there was enough space between us already?” And he’s sitting up again, doesn’t feel like sleeping anymore, doesn’t feel like sleeping any time this week. “It’s kind of pathetic but – I want to see you every day. And that’s impossible and I know and it’s okay, but – even though I wasn’t present at my apartment much these past months, a lot of times, I wished someone would be there, waiting for me to come back; someone that would mess up my laundry or drink all my milk and… that’s impossible too, I know, since you have so much stuff to do and there’s Damian too, and he needs you more than me because he’s your son and I… I’m okay with anything you choose us to have. But it has to be something.”

The words just keep falling, and Tim doesn’t want to feel – seem – like a broken dam, but there are years of silence that want to play catch up, want to play it’s their anniversary, play it’s their time to be on board, winning.

And why is Bruce always eloquent like this when he wants to be; saying everything in: “I’ll try to stop by.” (He’s looking at Tim like he’s fond of him. But how?)

And all right, so maybe not everything because Tim still doesn’t know – who will Bruce stop by as?

“As who?” slips out and Tim feels so naked; who could they be, lying in bed like this?

There’s a pulse, a beat to Bruce’s words, something like cadence but no – something like warmth but no – maybe amusement, affection? “As someone who will most definitely end up messing up your laundry and won’t be above drinking your milk, but will buy you a new carton. As someone who won’t be able to wait for you often, but may arrive or leave with you at times. And I may not be there every day, but I will try for quite often. Is that all right with you, Tim?”  
It is.

(His mouth refuses to state the obvious again, smiles and nods it instead. Tim makes sure Bruce sees.)

Bruce’s hand cradles the side of his jaw, his thumb stroking his ear and Tim leans in, mumbles: “Just to warn you, my milk is probably spoiled by now.”

Bruce copies him, says: “We’ll buy another one.” 

There’s a soft press of lips and only after something hollow pangs low in his gut Tim realizes – he’s pretty damn hungry.

Hungry and awake and not tired at all and in that case – 

“Can we go have breakfast?”

(The sun just called the cops on night’s house party, and Tim definitely sees their bluewhitered flashes of light in the sky; run moon run, the bathroom probably isn’t safe anymore.) 

And one of the benefits of being in a foreign city in familiar hotel rooms with Bruce is the fact, that if there’s someone who can get good breakfast at four thirty am without ending up with spit in his orange juice – it’s Bruce Wayne.


End file.
